S's Birth Story

(A minute or so after the birth I told Mum to take a picture. S is covered with two towels so you can't see him, but you can see the setting is not a hospital!)

Warning: Do NOT try this at home!

For those of you who can’t quite believe it, including myself, a rundown on the shortest labour I’ve ever heard of ;-) Looking back it feels like it was fast-forwarded!

4:30 am: I wake up, as usual, and lie in bed not quite able to get up for the loo just yet, disappointed that, once again, I have made it this far through the night with no contractions.

4.45: Bathroom: Finally! Some blood-stained mucous (“bloody show”) – a sign that labour is just around the corner, but it could even be up to 24-48 hours away. Still, I’m happy because I’m having a check-up at 9 am and this way my doctor won’t have to prompt labour as he wanted. I really want things to just start of their own accord.

4.50: Bathroom: A contraction and, man, it hurts! Am I a chicken or is the first phase of labour this painful?

4.55: Bedroom: Contraction no. 2, pretty awful. When it stops I check email, then go back to bed.

5:20: Bed: Contraction no. 3. I wake my husband, O. He gets dressed to go get the car, which is parked a few blocks away. I call my gyno. Tell him about bloody show and that contractions are quite painful but irregular. He tells me to go back to sleep and he’ll see me at 9 am, by which time I may be ready to give birth. If things progress, however, I am to eat a small breakfast, take a quick shower, and go to hospital.

No way can I sleep. O goes to collect the car and I run around finishing packing my hospital bag, boiling two eggs for O’s breakfast, making a cup of tea and setting the table for us two!

(Later I will realise that I was halfway through the second phase of labour, a time most women are in hospital being attended to by midwives and suffering, not running around making breakfast. In fact, by running and standing this whole time, I was speeding up my own labour without my knowledge.)

5:30-6 am: Kitchen-Bedroom-Bathroom: More contractions. Decide to wake my parents on the off chance we will be leaving soon. Contractions suddenly start coming thick and fast. Not timing but probably about every 3 minutes. Painful. Call doc. In the meantime I am still thinking of breakfast and manage to put on jeans and blouse for hospital. Doc tells me to have a quick shower and that should either put a stop to things or speed them up. Doesn’t sound enticing but I get undressed and hop in.

All hell breaks loose.

I don’t know what’s happening to me. The pain is as bad as it was when I had oxytocin administered with K – one contraction on top of another, painful as anything you’re ever likely to feel, and it feels like there are no breaks in between. I sob, wish for epidural, can’t find a position I’m comfortable in. Meanwhile my mum and O call through bathroom door for instructions on how to call my doctor and where to find my slippers for the hospital. I am howling. K wakes up and starts to bawl loudly.

Am in bath on all fours when O enters helpfully handing me my mobile so I can find the midwife’s number!! I scream at him to find it himself. Not knowing just how advanced my labour is I ask they also call the anesthetist. I am desperate. If I were with medical personnel this is the moment they would be telling me not to give up, that I am almost dilated and getting ready to push. But no one is here and I don’t have a clue what’s happening. I am too overwhelmed to think straight. I don’t even think of asking my doctor to come to our place instead of driving to hospital. I hop out of the bath and try to dress for hospital again! Put on blouse but take it off straight away.

I still do not realise how close I am to having the baby. All I know is that there’s no way I can leave for the hospital now and the thought of not getting there leaves me with no other option, which is totally terrifying.

Then suddenly, just as it came, it stops. Hell is over and I’m feeling a strong need to (putting it bluntly), poop. Oh oh, I know what this means: when you get this feeling in labour, it means you’re ready to push the baby out! This freaks me out but I can’t stop it. I sit on the loo and feel pressure between my legs. O comes to the door and asks if I’m ready to go! Whilst I am in denial about the birth being so close now I tell him that I can’t fathom the thought of getting dressed, let alone going to the car and driving anywhere. Don’t be silly he tells me, we’ll leave in five minutes. He and Mum are in the bathroom by now. I reach down and feel something slippery bulging a little between my legs. I have something between my legs I tell them. Mum, check if it’s the baby’s head. At first Mum thinks I’m swelling down there but suddenly she simply says, yes, it’s the head. At that moment my waters break.

Mum is an ocean of calm, she puts clean towels on our bed and makes me hop on and push. The baby’s head pops out right away like a jack in the box. O is calling my doctor. Call the paramedics I yell. I am no longer in any pain. We are staring at the head, which isn’t moving, and no one knows what to do. My dad is behind me stroking my head. (Embarrassment at my parents having seen me naked will hit hours later!) I tell him not to as it is distracting me.

I ask if the baby is breathing (very silly considering it’s still mostly inside me), and then if it’s alive. Everyone says yes, everything is fine but later I will find out they were just as scared as I was: no one had ever seen a birth and did not know that this was normal. It didn’t help that the head was slightly purple.

My pregnancy guide, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, features a small box of information on what to do in case of an emergency delivery outside of the hospital. By chance I had read that information – three times! I know you’re supposed to somehow push the baby’s head with your hands to release the shoulder but no one is willing to give it a go for fear of hurting him. By now I feel no more urge to push but I can’t just let him stay there so I push anyway and, with very little effort, the baby emerges as if in slow motion. I see all this and my mum’s hands under his armpits. When they lift him up I see that it is a boy – which I knew all along :-)

Give him to me I tell them, and O (who had never intended to be at the birth of any of his kids) places him on my tummy. O is panicking about the umbilical cord but I know you’re not to cut it and do my best not to deliver the placenta. I also know what you’re supposed to do with it but would rather not have that issue to deal with at home.

Szymon is beautiful, only his head is a little purple, the rest is ok. He cries and we know everything is fine. What a lovely baby my dad says, full of awe.

The doctor and paramedics arrive just minutes later. They cut the cord, tidy us up, try to get the placenta out which doesn’t come, and take us out to the ambulance. Thank God it’s 6:30 am on a Saturday morning and only one person in the street who, naturally, stares at me on the stretcher just as I probably would have stared at her.

(A particular "Czech comedy" moment occurs while I am waiting for the paramedics to bring the stretcher; I am perched on one of our kitchen chairs in the entry hall to our building, as the stretcher was too wide to fit through the narrow wing of our apartment's front door. I am wearing my bathrobe and smears of blood, and the umbilical cord is somewhere there too. At this instant our janitor walks past with his broom - "Oh good morning Madam," he says politely. "Good morning," I reply as though nothing out of the ordinary were happening.)

We fly to hospital with the siren blaring. My midwife and anesthetist (what’s she doing here???) are waiting outside the door and are in shock. The anesthetist does the only thing she can: puts me to sleep so the doctor can repair any damage that has been done after the placenta is finally delivered. That turns out to be the best sleep I am to have for the next few days and I am thankful for it! I only need a stitch each in four places and no major damage was done because I pushed Szymon out so slowly.

Szymon and I become minor celebrities in the maternity ward as even my midwife, in 20 years of work, hadn’t come across such a birth! And whilst it was kind of scary at the time, and risky, it really did end up being wonderful.

(By the way, O and Mum have gained internationally-renowned hero status for delivering the baby! What would the international grapevine do without text messages and email??)

Explanation
Labour, for those who don’t know, has three stages; the first has three phases. Normally labour stars in the first phase (effacement of cervix and dilation to 3 cm) or, usually in subsequent births, the second phase (dilation from 3 to 7 cm, the first phase having taken place painlessly over days or weeks preceding the big day). The third phase (dilation to 10 cm, what I had in the bathroom) is the worst, most painful part of labour and, by then, even if you are in hospital, it is too late for an epidural. My doctor and I concluded that I must’ve started around 5 cm dilation for the rest of second phase to have passed so quickly (roughly 50 min). First phase was over and done with earlier with all the contractions I’d been having. The horror third phase averages 15 min – 1 hr depending on the mother and the birth (first or subsequent). I was lucky as I am sure mine didn’t go for longer than the 15 min. The thought that it can go for much longer, especially for first-time mothers, leads me to honestly recommend an epidural to first-timers. This phase was described by a friend of mine, who gave birth first time with no pain relief, as a moment she wanted to jump out of the window. Sorry for scaring, this is just what I feel having been lucky to have such a short stage of pain. As I had an epidural with K I didn’t know what stage of labour I could’ve been at this time since I didn’t feel the pain of contractions then.